President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Tel Aviv on Tuesday to express France’s “full solidarity” with Israel after the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which left more than 1,400 dead on October 7, noted a journalist from the AFP.
The head of state will also call for “preserving the civilian populations” in Gaza while Israel has launched massive airstrikes there in response to the attack with the stated objective of “destroying” Hamas, indicated the ‘Elysium.
The main information:
- China calls on Israel to protect civilians.
- Emmanuel Macron arrived in Tel Aviv and expressed France’s “solidarity” with Israel on Tuesday.
- Two new hostages were released Monday evening by Hamas, ordered by the United States to release all those kidnapped.
- Israel has promised to “annihilate” Hamas.
- A third convoy crossed the border at Rafah, the only crossing point into Gaza not under Israeli control.
China would ‘do its best’ to support ‘peace-promoting’ efforts
China’s foreign minister told his Israeli counterpart on Monday that “all countries” have the right to defend themselves, but that they must “respect international humanitarian law and protect the safety of civilians.” This is the first call between the two nations’ top diplomats since the conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7.
“All countries have the right to defend themselves,” Wang Yi told Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, while emphasizing that “they must respect international humanitarian law and protect the safety of civilians.
Wang Yi promised that the China would “do its best” to support efforts “conducive to peace.” “The most urgent task now is to prevent the situation from worsening and leading to a more serious humanitarian catastrophe,” the Chinese diplomat added.
Also on Monday, Wang Yi had a telephone conversation with his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki and told him that Beijing “deeply expresses its solidarity with the Palestinian side.” “What the people of Gaza need most right now is security, food and medicine, not war, weapons and ammunition,” he told her.
“We are linked to Israel by mourning,” declares Emmanuel Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed France’s “solidarity” with Israel on Tuesday in Tel Aviv, stressing that the two countries were “linked by mourning” after the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement. Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7.
“We are linked to Israel by mourning. Thirty of our compatriots were assassinated on October 7. Nine others are still missing or held hostage. In Tel Aviv, with their families, I expressed the solidarity of the Nation,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
We are linked to Israel through mourning.
Thirty of our compatriots were murdered on October 7. Nine others are still missing or held hostage.
In Tel Aviv, with their families, I expressed the solidarity of the Nation. pic.twitter.com/d62qT7e8US
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 24, 2023
Two new hostages released
Two new hostages were released Monday evening by Hamas, ordered by the United States to release all the people kidnapped during its deadly attack on Israel on October 7, before any discussion on a truce.
“The hostages must be released, then we can talk,” the US president said on Monday Joe Biden. French President Emmanuel Macron, expected in Israel on Tuesday, must defend a different approach, and plead for a “humanitarian truce” in order to provide aid to the inhabitants of Gaza and “facilitate the release of the hostages”, according to his services.
The two hostages released Monday are two women, of Israeli nationality and from Kibbutz Nir Oz, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office which gave their identities: Yocheved Lifschitz, 85 years old, and Nourit Kuper, 79 years old. Their husbands are still detained.
This release comes three days after that of an American woman and her daughter. Around 220 Israeli, foreign or binational hostages were identified by Israel, taken by men of the Palestinian Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip after their deadly attack committed in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest. Hundreds of Hamas members infiltrated Israel from Gaza, spreading terror in this unprecedented attack since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians shot, burned or mutilated on the day of the attack, according to authorities. On Monday, Hamas claimed that 5,087 Palestinians, mostly civilians including 2,055 children, had been killed by Israeli bombings in retaliation since the start of the conflict.
“Complete dismantling”
Israel has promised to “annihilate” Hamas, which took power in 2007 in the Gaza Strip. “We want to completely dismantle Hamas – its leadership, its military wing and its operating mechanisms,” said Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, surrounded by several armed men, in a video posted on X by the Israeli army during the night from Monday to Tuesday.
The strikes have intensified in recent days on the 362 km2 enclave where 2.4 million Palestinians are crowded together, also subject to a siege which deprives them of food, water and electricity, imposed since the 9 October by Israel.
The Israeli army announced that it had struck “more than 320 military targets” during the night from Sunday to Monday, infrastructure of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad. These two groups are classified as “terrorist” by the United States, the European Union and Israel.
35 humanitarian workers killed
International aid began to arrive in dribs and drabs since Saturday via Egypt. On Monday, a third convoy crossed the border at Rafah, the only crossing point into Gaza not under Israeli control. In total, around fifty trucks were able to enter in three days, while according to the UN at least 100 are needed per day.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also called for “unhindered” access for humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and a “rapid ceasefire”. The Chinese foreign minister, whose country has not explicitly condemned the Hamas attack, told his Israeli counterpart on Monday that “all countries (have) the right to defend themselves”, during the first call between the senior diplomats of both nations since the start of the conflict.
“The most urgent task now is to prevent the situation from worsening and leading to a more serious humanitarian catastrophe,” Wang Yi also told Eli Cohen, according to a statement from his ministry.
The Israeli army continues its preparations for a ground offensive, massing soldiers on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip and carrying out limited incursions there to target Hamas infrastructure and seek to locate missing or kidnapped people.
This prospect worries the international community, which fears an escalation of the conflict. Iran, an ally of Hamas, warned that the situation risked becoming “out of control” in the Middle East. The United States has strengthened its military presence in the region. An initiative which runs the risk of an “escalation” of the conflict, declared the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov in Tehran on Monday.
Strikes on the South
Since October 15, the Israeli army has called on civilians in the north of the Gaza Strip, where the bombardments are most intense, to flee to the south. However, the strikes also continue to affect the south, close to the Egyptian border, where the displaced are massed by the hundreds of thousands.
The humanitarian situation is “catastrophic”, the UN has warned, with at least 1.4 million Palestinians having fled their homes. In Rafah, men filled plastic containers with water from cisterns, while others searched the ruins of a building destroyed by a strike, looking for survivors.
“They put the torn body of my son in a blue bag, Cham was charred,” chokes Ayman Abou Chamalah, a 34-year-old Palestinian, who lost two children and his wife in a bombing. In Khan Younès, still in the south, a family was also preparing to bury children killed in a bombing, their bodies draped in white carried to the cemetery by relatives.
In Lebanon, more than 19,000 people were displaced after an increase in clashes between the Israeli army and Lebanese Hezbollah, supported by Iran and ally of Hamas, on the border between the two countries, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The border area on the Israeli side was also evacuated.